Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, this book is not for you. Sorry, Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy, it's not for you either.
I mean no disrespect to America's current congressional leaders, Republican or Democrat. This is not personal. Likewise, if you are part of what the media calls the "base" of Republican Party or the Democratic Party and you harbor visceral hatred for the other side, you should probably stop reading now. If you think the most critical political objective is to defeat the other party, this isn't your playbook.
If you believe it is more important to get one more person from your party elected than to solve one more problem for America, I'm not your guy. If you think President Trump can do no wrong, you're not my target audience. The same is true if you cannot come up with one thing the Trump administration has gotten right. If you are among either the 8 percent of Americans identified in a well-known "hidden tribes" survey who are "progressive activists" or the 6 percent who are "devoted conservatives," I may not be able to reach you.
This book is intended to reach people like the twenty-five-year-old Maryland accountant who told me last year while I was campaigning for a seat in the United States Senate, "My generation does not understand why our government is a 'blue' team fighting against a 'red' team."
"Why," he added, "isn't one team working together for the common good of Americans?"
He gave voice to the frustrations shared by millions of Americans. It's one of the reasons I ran for office in 2018, and addressing that concern is why I wrote this book.
Contract to Unite America is also for those who yearn for the days when President Ronald Reagan could work effectively with House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr. to fix Social Security's looming insolvency. Yes, Republicans and Democrats once knew how to negotiate with each other--and how to compromise.
This book is for the record number of Americans who think government is currently the problem rather than the solution. It is for the 46 percent of us who identify as neither Republicans nor Democrats--and for members of the two parties who realize that neither side has a monopoly on wisdom or good intentions.
This book is for the 85,964 people who voted for me in my run for U.S. Senate.
Finally, this book is for family, starting with my amazing wife, Jennifer, who is a lifelong Democrat who sometimes votes, and even argues, against her own party. It is for my three children, each of whom has chosen to register as an independent and who have learned to challenge ideas presented by any politician or party. And it is for their children and their children's children, to whom I hope we will leave a stronger, more unified nation.